


The Five Parts of a Story

by Rainne



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, What Was I Thinking?, my weird brain
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-07-17
Updated: 2007-07-17
Packaged: 2018-01-12 03:52:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 10,941
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1181553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rainne/pseuds/Rainne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Buffy and Giles must take responsibility for an orphaned child.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Exposition: Stranger in a Strange Land

_It was cold, and dark, and Eiimauh was all alone. It was raining, and the rain was cold. She didn’t know where she was any more; her mother had disappeared in the big boom that had thrown her so far, and had not come back. The youngling rubbed her eyes and continued to wander in a vaguely forward direction._

Nothing looked familiar. All around her were stone structures, some no more than thin markers poking up out of the ground and others large enough to house a small family-group. The growing things were not familiar growing things; they were tall, brown and hard at the bottom and green and puffy at the tops. She had never seen such tall growing things before; had not even recognized them as growing things until she sniffed one of them and smelled the life in it.

Eiimauh crept along the wet ground, hiding when she saw movement or people. The people in this place looked similar to the ones that she was familiar with, but they moved differently, and when she saw one of them in the light, she saw that they looked different as well. At last, Eiimauh found a safe place between two of the stone structures under a small bush that looked like a kiazau but was not, and cried.

She stayed under the not-kiazau for a long time. She was wet, and cold, and hungry, and lonely. She didn’t know where she was, where her mother was, or what had happened to bring her to this strange, cold place with its rain and its strange growing things and its strange stone structures. After a time, Eiimauh slept.

It had clearly been a portal. Buffy knew from portals when she saw them, and that had definitely been a portal. It had opened in the middle of Restfield Cemetery just as the Slayer, already irritable about having to patrol in the rain, had come around the corner of Bleaker Street. She had begun to run toward it, hoping to catch whatever came through before it escaped. She didn’t make it. When the portal closed with a boom that echoed throughout the entire graveyard, silencing all the night birds, Buffy was still four hundred yards away.

Around the place where the portal had been, the grass was charred in a rough circle. There were no tracks among the char to indicate that anything had walked out of the portal, though Buffy knew enough to know that the absence of tracks meant nothing. After all, the Gentlemen had floated several inches off the ground. She began a search of the area, starting at the center of the burned area and spiraling outward.

At last, in a clump of Pampas grass, Buffy found evidence that a fairly small creature had landed with fairly decent force. Behind the plant, Buffy found a set of small footprints leading deeper into the cemetery.

Whatever it was, it wasn’t very big, Buffy guessed from the size of the tracks; probably about the size of an average three-year-old child. She wouldn’t have any trouble Slaying whatever it was, and carrying details back to Giles for him to research. She made a mental note to remember what she had seen of the portal, and then pulled a stake out of her waistband, tracking whatever it was that was leaving those prints.

A few minutes later, Buffy was scratching her head in confusion as she followed the tracks. Things that came through mystical portals like that didn’t usually just wander aimlessly around graveyards; they tended to have a goal in mind and head straight towards it. This creature, whatever it was, seemed to be just meandering around – and she’d have to remember to tell Giles she’d used that word in a full sentence; he’d be so proud.

So far, the creature she was tracking had checked out several tombstones, had tried the door to a crypt without success, and had spent at least a few moments examining a palm tree. It was so weird. Buffy continued to follow, though, and before long she was standing in front of a huge grouping of azalea bushes that something had clearly burrowed inside of. This had to be the weirdest demon behavior, like, ever.

She paced widdershins around the azalea patch three times, peering in and unable to make out any details in the rainy darkness. Finally she took a deep breath and knelt down, peering into the hole the burrowing thing had left. She narrowed her eyes, trying to make out details.

The first thing she saw was blue. Was it a blue demon? There were several of those, but they weren’t usually this small. Then she realized that the demon wasn’t blue: its clothing was. It was wearing a denim coverall. What sort of teeny demon ran around in denim coveralls? And a grubby white tee shirt? Then the small form rolled over. Buffy’s hand clenched instinctively on the stake she was holding, raising it to thrusting position, before her entire body froze in shock. It wasn’t a demon; at least, not precisely.

Buffy put the stake in her back pocket, where she could reach it easily if she needed to, and reached gingerly into the azalea bush, shaking the creature’s shoulder gently. “Hey,” she said softly.

Its eyes opened, brightly green and with slitted pupils like a cat’s eyes. They took in her face, at first eagerly, and then less so. “Mis schaa?” the creature said in a trilling voice.

Buffy held out one open hand. “Come on out,” she said softly. “I won’t hurt you.”

The creature seemed to be considering for a long moment, and then at last it reached out a human-like hand and tentatively grasped her own. Buffy helped it clamber out of the bush, and brushed its clothing off carefully. “There, that’s better,” she said, keeping her voice soft and gentle to avoid startling it.

When she’d estimated its size as being about the same as an average three-year-old child, she’d been right: it was about the size of a three year old. The trouble was, as best as Buffy could tell, it was a three-year-old. It just happened to be a three-year-old Thing That Looked Like A Cross Between A Human And A Cat. Complete with, as Buffy could easily see, wet golden fur and a tail that poked out of the seat of its – her – overalls.

Buffy gave the little catgirl a smile. “You don’t by any chance speak English, do you?”

“Mai kiia?” the child responded.

“Oh, boy.” Buffy sighed. There was nothing for it; the kid needed to get out of the rain, and Buffy certainly couldn’t take her to the police station like an ordinary foundling. “Giles is just gonna love you.”

As they walked in the rain, Buffy occasionally glanced down at the face of the strange child holding her hand. She hoped Giles would know what she was and where she came from. She turned down Oakpark Street, the child following placidly, and trotted down the steps into the Spanish-tiled courtyard. He was still up; his living room light shone through the tiny window under the stairs.

Buffy picked the little girl up and opened the door. “Giles!”

He was out of his chair in an instant, by her side, taking the child out of her arms and gasping as she had at his realization that this child was not human. “My goodness, Buffy!”

“I don’t know what she is,” she said, her teeth beginning to chatter with cold. “F-found her behind the Von Moss crypt.”

“Shower,” he ordered her. “Now. Get warmed up.”

“S-should take her in the shower, too,” Buffy pointed out. “She’s as wet as I am, maybe wetter.”

Giles looked skeptical, but Buffy made a raspberry sound, taking the little girl back from him. “She’s a baby, Giles,” she said softly. Then she kicked her wet shoes off and padded to the bathroom.

The straps of the overalls came off easily, and the shirt as well; getting the pants off around two chubby legs and a tail provided a little more of a challenge. But eventually Buffy had the child stripped, and then herself stripped, and the two of them in the shower. She set the child in the floor of the shower and stepped in herself, warming up quickly and washing with Giles’s soap and shampoo, then washing the little girl all over with shampoo, foregoing the soap as useless on the short, silky pelt.

Once she was reasonably warm again, and felt that the little one had also stopped shivering, she turned the water off and stepped out. Giles had dropped a couple of bath sheets just inside the door; she wrapped herself in one and set about toweling the child off vigorously with the other. Once the little girl was reasonably dry, she wrapped that towel around the child and focused on herself.

Under the two towels had been Buffy’s overnight bag; she dressed herself in yoga pants and a tank top, then picked the child up again and padded out into the living room, still chaffing gently at the damp – the word was unavoidable – fur. She dropped onto the sofa, still cuddling the child close, and smiled at Giles, who was just bringing in the tea tray. “Thanks,” she said softly as he prepared her cup the way she liked it.

“You’re quite welcome,” he replied, kneeling down next to her so that he could study the girl’s sleepy face. “Hello, there,” he said softly. He held out his hands. “Will you come to me?”

Warm and mostly dry, the little one apparently felt safe enough to do so. She yawned and snuggled into Giles’s embrace, making a sound that could only be described as a purr. He joggled her small form gently. “Don’t go to sleep yet. Open your eyes.”

The little eyes blinked sleepily. “Schaa?” she trilled. “Mis schaa?”

“She said the same thing in the cemetery,” Buffy commented, sipping her tea. “Do you know what it means?”

“No,” Giles said, looking perplexed. “It’s a language I’m unfamiliar with. I don’t suppose you speak any English at all, do you, love?”

Brilliant green slit-pupiled eyes blinked back at him in benign incomprehension. He sighed and tried again, in three more human languages and five demonic ones. The child did not evince even a glimmer of understanding, but she did giggle at some of the funnier-sounding tongues. At last, Giles settled for the time-honored tradition of dealing with someone who doesn’t speak one’s language: he pointed at himself and said his name clearly, then pointed at Buffy and said her name, then pointed at the child with a quizzical expression.

“Eiimauh,” she announced clearly.

There was no way that vowel sound was going to come out of an unmangled human throat. They settled for calling her Emma, and she responded well to it. Giles had put their wet clothing in the wash, and once it was dry, Buffy took Emma back to the bathroom and dressed her again, gently brushing the last latent dampness out of the little girl’s pelt and hair – her mind steadfastly avoided the word ‘mane’.

After dressing, Buffy scrambled some eggs and fried some bacon in the kitchen, listening to her Watcher and the strange little catchild exchanging words in the living room.

“Table,” Giles said, touching the table.

“Kaiili,” the little girl responded, shaking her head.

Giles touched a chair. “Chair.”

The little girl shook her head again. “Lii.” Then, suddenly, as though understanding the rules of this new game, the girl touched the lamp with one careful finger. “Riiou?”

“Lamp,” Giles replied, smiling.

“Laaam,” the girl repeated, the trilling accent of her native tongue audible in her vowel sounds. “Laamt.”

“Lamp.” Giles said it again, more slowly, emphasizing the plosive P at the end of the word.

“Laamp!” Emma exclaimed, jumping up and down in her excitement. “Laamp!” She grabbed at the chair Giles had touched earlier and looked at him expectantly. When he said the word again, she repeated it. “Chaaah.”

“How cute,” Buffy commented as she brought out three plates of eggs and bacon. “She’s even copying your accent.”

Giles sat on the couch with his plate. Buffy dropped to the floor next to the coffee table with hers, and set Emma’s plate on the table as well. The little girl came over and poked at the fluffy pile of eggs, making an inquiring sound in the back of her throat.

“Eggs,” Buffy said slowly, offering the girl a spoon. “Can you eat with a spoon?”

Emma poked at the pile of eggs with her spoon. “Eggs,” she said clearly. Then she watched Buffy carefully. The Slayer smiled, and made a big show of eating her own eggs before Emma would consent to try hers.

“I think she’s about three years old,” the Watcher commented as he and Buffy watched Emma sniff suspiciously at a slice of bacon. “Certainly not older than four.”

Buffy nodded. “I was thinking the same thing. Bacon, Emma, it’s bacon. See?” She took a bite of hers. To Giles, she added, “She’s not any bigger than a human kid about that age. I guess that means I’ll have to take her home with me.”

“Why is that?” Giles asked, not adverse to the idea but curious about her logic.

She smirked at him. “She’s three, Giles. I mean, I know you’ve got all those nieces and nephews, but how much do you really know about having a little girl that age around twenty-four-seven?”

“Not very much,” he admitted, “but I’m sure I could muddle through.”

“Right up until she started to cry,” Buffy retorted with a smile. “Or – ”

She was cut off by a sudden whimper from the child. “Kiiyaa,” the girl said plaintively. “Kiiyaa!”

Buffy raised her hands in a gesture that indicated she did not understand. Emma made a pantomime in unmistakable body language. Standing up, Buffy held out her hand to Emma. “Or until she has to go to the potty, maybe,” she finished dryly, smirking at Giles as she led the little girl back to the bathroom to show her how the toilet worked.

When the two of them returned, Buffy sat down to finish her meal and gently encouraged Emma to do the same. “It’ll be fine for her to come with me. In fact, I think I’d kinda like having her there. It kinda sucks, rattling around in that big old house by myself since Mom’s gone.”

“I understand,” Giles said softly. “Very well, then. You’ll take her home with you, and I shall research to find out where she came from and how to send her home.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Buffy agreed. She stood, stretched, and held her hand out to Emma. “Sorry to stick you with the cleaning, but it sounds like the rain’s stopped, and I’d like to get Little Missy here into bed before too much later. Even if she is a demon kid, she still ought to have a decent bedtime.”

Emma took Buffy’s hand trustingly. “Buffy,” she said, grinning.

Buffy grinned back. “That’s me, kiddo,” she said cheerfully. “Come on; let’s get you into bed.”


	2. Rising Action: Catch-22

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Buffy and Giles must take responsibility for an orphaned child.

“Where is she?” a voice roared into the blackness.

“I… I don’t know,” a second voice, somewhat higher pitched, stammered. “I don’t understand. The portal should have brought her right here.”

“You idiot! You’ve done it wrong!” There was the meaty sound of a heavy blow falling on something soft, and a low moan of pain. “Find her.”

“Y-yes, sir…” the higher pitched voice wheezed.

“Do it,” the first voice growled. “And if you fail me this time, fool, I won’t just bruise them, I’ll rip them off and eat them. Understand?”

“Yes, sir…”

“Good. This ritual won’t work without her blood, and I’m not going to lose my chance because an idiot like you can’t figure out how to properly place a portal. You have twenty four hours. She’d better be here then, or I might just decide to see if your blood will suffice.”

For the first few hours after the spell went bad, Jonathan Levinson focused his entire being on recovering from the assault on those tender parts of his person that granted him entrance to the men’s restroom. Once he was able to move around again without moaning audibly in pain, he set up his magickal circle again and began to reconstruct the spell he’d done. He studied his notes carefully, then focused on the remains of the items he’d used. He knew he’d gotten the chant right – he’d carried his notes into the circle with him.

Sifting through the charred remains of herbs in the brazier, Jonathan picked up something that shouldn’t have been there. In with his bits of rosemary and root of asphodel was a leaf of something that didn’t belong. He picked it up and studied it. Tiny, stunted and mostly burned, it couldn’t be what he thought it was. He brought it to his nose and sniffed it carefully.

Mint.

“How the hell did mint get into my rosemary?” he wondered aloud, looking around the basement blankly. All his herbs were carefully stored in the mini fridge and he couldn’t figure out how they might have gotten mixed. At last, he sighed. It didn’t matter how the mix-up had happened; the spell had gone wrong and he had a kid to find, on the quickness.

Jonathan went to his bookshelf and pulled out an herb encyclopedia, settling down with a pencil and a three by five card to see if he could determine the effects that accidental mint inclusion would have on his spell.

\---

Emma proved to be afraid of the dark. Buffy tried singing her to sleep with silly little lullabies her mother had once used on her, stroking the little girl’s silky hair as she lay in Buffy’s own bed, but just when she thought Emma had drifted off to sleep and she would get up to go to her own rest in what had been her mother’s bed, Emma would wake and begin to cry again. Finally, at a loss, Buffy picked Emma up and carried her to the master bedroom, settling her in the king size bed. She changed into her own nightshirt quickly and slid between the covers next to Emma.

Purring contentedly, Emma snuggled up next to Buffy and went to sleep. Buffy wrapped her arm around the warm little body and, after a time, went to sleep herself.

The sun was shining brightly into the bedroom when Buffy was pounced on the next morning. Emma was awake, bright eyed and bushy tailed – and Buffy groaned inwardly at her own unintentional pun. Emma was also hungry, if the way she was rubbing her stomach and pointing into her mouth was any indication.

“Are you hungry?” Buffy asked, pointing to Emma’s belly. “You want to eat?”

“Hungry!” Emma agreed, easily grasping the salient words. “Hungry! Eat!”

“You’re sure picking up the lingo quick, kiddo,” Buffy commented as she tossed the covers back and climbed out of the big bed. “Come on, let’s get you fed.”

Emma sat on the island counter while Buffy prepared pancakes, watching the proceedings with interest and intelligence. Buffy also fried more bacon, since Emma had enthusiastically enjoyed it the previous night at Giles’s apartment. The two of them took time while Buffy was cooking to expand Emma’s working English vocabulary somewhat. By the time they were finished eating, Emma knew the names of all the utensils Buffy had used to cook as well as the ones they ate with; she knew the difference between a plate and a bowl, and she could warble the first half of the alphabet song with prompting and a little help.

The two of them went upstairs for a shower, which offered Buffy the opportunity to teach shower words like soap, water, and shampoo. Yuck was a word that Emma already knew; she proved it loudly when she learned that the strawberry shampoo did not taste as good as it smelled. Once showers were done and everyone’s hair was dry and combed, Buffy got Emma back into her own clothing and dressed herself. “All right, you,” Buffy said, holding out a hand to the little girl, “First thing we need to do is go get you some more clothes.”

Buffy didn’t have a car seat, so she and Emma took advantage of the bright spring day and walked downtown. Three doors down from the Magic Box, there was a small consignment boutique specializing in children’s clothing, and Buffy went straight there, armed with a Visa card and her own unerring fashion sense. Blithely ignoring the stares directed at the little girl – and there were many – Buffy focused on choosing clothes that could be easily altered to account for the presence of a tail. Emma tried them all on cheerfully – she seemed to do everything cheerfully – and Buffy discussed everything with her as though she understood everything Buffy was saying.

Before the shopping trip was halfway over, Buffy was getting irritated by the stares. Sure, Emma was unusual looking; there was no getting around that. She looked just like a normal human kid except that most of her body was covered in a baby-fine golden pelt. The hair was sleek enough that from a distance, Emma simply appeared to have the healthy tan of a child who spends a great deal of time outside in the sun. Upon close observation, however, the fact of the hair was obvious. Her scalp hair – Buffy was still avoiding the word ‘mane’ as hard as she could – was longer, still baby-fine, but more of a blonde. Her facial features were, if not exactly feline, certainly angular, and her bright green eyes were slightly slanted as well as featuring the slitted pupils of a cat’s eyes. Outside of her excessive body hair and her eyes – and, of course, her tail – Emma looked fairly ordinary. And after all, if the good citizens of Sunnydale could ignore vampires, raging demons and the Hellmouth, surely one little catgirl wasn’t too much to ignore.

It never failed, though; anytime Buffy wanted to slide under the radar, something happened to bring her up in front of everyone’s attention. In this case, it was the appearance of a very pregnant former classmate with the unlikely name of Aphrodisia. Said classmate strolled into the store, clasping the hand of a little boy of perhaps two, and stopped dead in the center of the store to say, “Oh, my god! Buffy Summers? I didn’t know you had a kid!”

Buffy cringed inwardly, then turned with a big plastered-on smile. “Oh, hey, Aphrodisia. This is Emma.”

“Emma? That’s such an old-fashioned name. So is the librarian her daddy? What was his name? Guyles? Niles? Something like that?”

“Giles,” Buffy ground out through gritted teeth as Aphrodisia strolled over, dragging the very snotty-looking little boy with her. He had two fingers in his mouth and gnawed them incessantly in a way that suggested he might be cutting a tooth.

“Right,” Aphrodisia responded, coming to a halt at a close enough range to see Emma better. Her eyebrows crawled up into her hairline. “She’s… um… she’s really, um, unique looking,” she finally temporized. “She doesn’t look much like you at all, though, does she?”

“She’s adopted,” Buffy lied blithely, wishing the Hellmouth would open up and swallow her. “From overseas.”

The little boy took his fingers out of his mouth long enough to point at Emma. “Kitty,” he said loudly.

Aphrodisia blushed crimson and fled to the other side of the store with her son, where she hid herself among the racks of boys’ clothing. Laughing silently, Buffy gathered up her choices and headed for the cash register, Emma following along obediently.

The choice of girls’ shoes in the consignment shop had been precisely zero, so Buffy took Emma two more doors down to the Stride Rite boutique for shoes. Two pairs of sneakers, a pair of patent leather Mary Janes, and a tiny pair of bright yellow Crocs later, they were back on the sidewalk and Buffy was feeling mischievous. She glanced down the street at the Magic Box, wondering if Giles had made any headway with the research, and then she looked down at Emma. “Are you hungry, Emma?”

“Hungry!” Emma repeated enthusiastically. “Yes! Eat!”

“Excellent,” Buffy said, turning toward the Subway with Aphrodisia’s assumption in her mind. “Let’s get some sandwiches and go see Daddy. You want to go see Daddy?”

Emma’s face scrunched up cutely. “Daddy?”

“Daddy Giles,” Buffy clarified.

Emma smiled brightly. “Daddy!”

“Sounds like a plan to me. Come on, squirt.” She grabbed Emma’s hand and together they crossed the road again.

Neither of them saw the eyes that followed them as they crossed the street, or saw the small figure that hurried away through an alley. “Oh, crap, oh, crap,” Jonathan whispered to himself, hurrying back home. “What the hell am I gonna do now?”

He wondered if running away – far, far away – would do him any good. Somehow, he doubted it. He stumbled into his mom’s basement, slamming the door shut behind him, and turned. He shrieked like a little girl in surprise when he saw the very large, very feline man sitting in his broken-down recliner like it was a throne. “Oh! Sir!”

Seven feet and two inches of muscular cat man stood up and crossed the basement in three very long strides. The powerful arm came out and grabbed Jonathan by the front of his shirt. “Where is she? Have you found her?”

“I found her,” Jonathan wheezed around the choking grip.

“Well, where is she?” the man roared, shaking the boy hard. “Why did you not bring her to me?”

“I couldn’t!” Jonathan exclaimed. “Buffy has her! The- the Slayer!”

“A Slayer!” the man’s voice dropped to a low, growling purr. He dropped Jonathan, who fell in a heap on the floor. “You will tell me everything you know of this Slayer. Then I will find her, I will take my sister from her, and I will eat her heart and her liver before I deliver my sister up to the Void.”

Across town in the Magic Box, Giles looked up as the bell over the door rang, his face breaking into a smile as Buffy and Emma entered, Buffy carrying their shopping bags and Emma proudly bearing their sandwiches. The little one ran to Giles when she saw him, allowing him to take the sandwiches and put them on the table before imperiously demanding to be picked up. “Daddy!” she said when he obeyed her, lifting her up to hold her at his waist. “I bring sammich!”

Giles’s eyebrows crawled up toward his hairline, and he looked at Buffy with a quizzical expression. She grinned, passing him to hide the shopping bags in the training room before coming back out and shrugging. “Don’t ask me. I ran into Aphrodisia and she asked if you were the daddy, because apparently ‘everyone’ in school knew that you and I were thumping in the library after hours.” She breezed past him to begin pulling sandwiches out of bags. “I got you the corned beef sandwich you like so much, and ham and cheese for Anya.”

“Thank you,” Giles said, his eyes trained on her back. Then he set Emma down on the floor. “Emma, darling, help Mummy get the sandwiches out. I’ll be right back.”

Buffy’s head swiveled when the word ‘Mummy’ came out of Giles’s mouth, but she couldn’t help grinning as he moved to the supply room door to call Anya up.

Buffy braced herself for the inevitable comments when Anya came upstairs, but she was still shocked by what was said. Anya studied Emma for a long moment, and then said, “Giles, why didn’t you tell me you had a Miarrao child?”

Giles stared at his assistant. “I beg your pardon?”

Anya pointed at Emma. “The Miarrao. How did you get her? They never leave their home dimension. Especially not that young; she can’t be more than three years old.” Her face grew slightly suspicious. “Did you steal her?”

Giles was reaching for a notepad and pencil. “Of course not, Anya; try not to be ridiculous. Tell me everything you know about the Miarrao.”

“Not very much, actually,” Anya said, sounding apologetic. “They mate for life, so their females are very rarely scorned. I do know that they have one of the most difficult dimensions to get in or out of; opening a portal to or from the Miarrao world requires a life sacrifice.”

Giles paused, looking down at Emma, who was contentedly nibbling at her potato chips. “A life sacrifice?”

Anya nodded, unwrapping her ham and cheese sandwich. “On the Miarrao side, actually. So killing someone on this side wouldn’t work; you’d have to kill someone on the Miarrao side to make the portal open. That’s why it’s always necessary to take someone expendable with you if you go there on vacation.”

Buffy sat down as well, unwrapping her own meatball sandwich. “So for someone to bring Emma here, that means someone died on the other end, right?”

Anya nodded, then spoke through a bite of sandwich. “Probably her mother. A Miarrao woman would never let her child go without a fight.”

“Anya,” Giles said evenly, “this is probably too much to hope for, but do you by any chance speak the Miarrao language?”

“I speak a few words of it,” Anya replied, “but not very many. I’ve never had occasion to go to the homeworld, so I never picked up more than I needed to get by.”

“Do you know what the word ‘schaa’ means?” Giles asked, trying his best to mimick Emma’s pronunciation from the previous night.

Emma’s ears perked, her head swiveling up at Giles’s words. “Mis schaa?” she asked eagerly.

Anya nodded once, decisively. “She’s asking for her mother. She must not know her mother’s dead.”

“Are you sure her mother’s dead?” Buffy asked. “I mean, couldn’t it have been someone else that died?”

“It could have been someone else who died to open the portal,” Anya confirmed, “but if this child is here without her mother, her mother is dead. There’s no way a Miarrao woman would let her child go. They’re very fierce about things like their children. Even more so than human parents.” She finished her sandwich and stood. “I just don’t understand what she’s doing here.” Then she shrugged. “I hope you get along well, because you’re probably going to have her for a very long time.” And with that encouragement, Anya turned and headed back into the stock room.

Giles and Buffy studied one another across the table. Finally, Buffy sighed. “Well, I was just complaining about how quiet the house gets with nobody but me in it, wasn’t I?”

Giles smiled slightly at her, then grew serious. “We must be careful,” he said slowly. “Whoever brought Emma here did so for a purpose; we don’t know who they are or what that purpose is, and that puts us at a distinct disadvantage.”

“Constant vigilance,” Buffy agreed. “Check. No, Emma, we don’t put chips in our nose.”

“I’ll begin researching,” Giles said as he tidied up his own trash. “Perhaps there’s some sort of obscure festival requiring the sacrifice of a Miarrao.” He sighed. “I don’t hold out much hope; I doubt very much is known about her homeworld. I’ll call Wesley, though, and ask him to check as well. He has a few books that I don’t have.”

Buffy nodded. “Works for me.” She gathered up the rest of the trash and carried it over to the trash can. “I’m gonna take Emma home and alter her pants so she doesn’t have to sit on her tail.”

Giles boggled at her. “You can sew?”

Buffy gave him a grin as she disappeared into the training room to collect the bags of clothing. “I have many skills. Come by for dinner tonight and maybe I’ll show you some of them.”


	3. Conflict: Things Fall Apart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Buffy and Giles must take responsibility for an orphaned child.

The best way to handle things, Jonathan decided, was just to brazen it out. He paced in front of the Slayer’s house for about five minutes before working up the courage to just go up to the front door and ring the doorbell. From inside, he could hear the sound of childish laughter. So the little girl was there. Good. He swallowed and ran the story through his head once last time.

She was an animal from another dimension, he would tell the Slayer, brought here accidentally through a scrying spell, and he was going to send her back. He would promise to be more careful in the future, and Buffy would give him the child and he would be off the hook with the little girl’s very nasty older brother.

Buffy opened the door and blinked when she saw him. “Jonathan?”

“Hi, Buffy,” he greeted her with an awkward wave. “I, um, came to talk to you about, well, that.” He pointed at the tiny, furry little girl who sat enraptured in front of the television.

Buffy raised an eyebrow. “What about her?” she asked, stressing the pronoun just slightly. Suddenly, her face grew dangerous. “What do you know about this?”

“Nothing!” Jonathan exclaimed immediately, and then temporized, “Well, nothing much, anyway.”

Foregoing the verbal invitation, Buffy grabbed Jonathan by the collar and dragged him into the house, slamming the door and shoving him none too gently up against it. “Explain,” she hissed.

He stammered out his carefully prepared story, explaining that the accidental portal had been a result of the mint mixed in with his rosemary. He thought it sounded like a solid, believable story. When he was done, he said, “So, y’know, I’ll just get it out of your way.”

Buffy smirked. Jonathan quailed. “I don’t think so, Jonathan,” Buffy said softly. “You see, while I’m not a big Star Wars geek, I’m also not as stupid as you seem to think I am. I know the difference between an other-dimensional cat and a Miarrao, and this is a Miarrao. I also know that you can’t just accidentally open a portal to the Miarrao homeworld.” Her voice dropped in pitch, and Buffy Summers was suddenly a lot scarier than the big cat guy waiting in Jonathan’s basement. “Why’d you do it, Jonathan?” she demanded. “Why’d you kill her mother and bring her here? What were you gonna do, sell her as a sideshow freak?”

“No!” Jonathan squeaked. “It was an accident, really! I didn’t kill anybody, I swear!”

She hit him. Not terribly hard, though he’d have a heck of a shiner, but hard enough to make him cry and start shaking. “Don’t hit me! Don’t hit me! I’ll tell you everything!”

“Yeah,” Buffy replied, “you will. But you’re not just gonna tell me.” She dragged him off the door and into the living room, where she tossed him effortlessly onto the couch. “Don’t move. If you move, I will hurt you. Badly. Understand?”

When he nodded, she turned away and went to the phone, dialing the number to the Magic Box. “Hey, Anya, I need to talk to Giles.”

When her Watcher picked up, Buffy said, “I think I’ve got our answers. Can you come over here?”

“Certainly,” Giles replied. “I’ll be there in minutes. What did you find out?”

“I’ll show you when you get here,” she replied.

“I’m on my way,” he promised, and hung up.

Buffy went back to what she had been doing – altering Emma’s new pants to account for the presence of a tail – at a folding table in the living room, where she kept one glowering eye on Jonathan and one – more protective – on the giggling little girl who was watching the Roadrunner.

She finished the pair of jeans she had been working on and called Emma over, changing her out of yesterday’s overalls and into the new jeans, checking their fit and the placement of the tail hole. She nodded in satisfaction when she saw that she’d gotten it just right on the first try.

“I – I didn’t know you could sew,” Jonathan offered tentatively.

Buffy’s eyes cut to him in suspicion, but she found only honest curiosity on his face. “My Grandma Summers taught me how when I was little,” she explained. “I used to spend summers with her and Grandpa Summers in Palo Alto, and she taught me how to do all kinds of girly stuff. I can sew, knit, cross stitch and crochet. I never did get the hang of tatting lace, though; she died before I really learned it well, and not long after that, I started Slaying. Not much free time for lacemaking after that.” She picked up a tiny pair of khaki slacks and turned them inside out, finding the right spot on the back and going to work with a seam ripper.

There was a knock at the door, and Giles poked his head in. “Buffy?”

“Living room,” Buffy called back. Not even looking up, she pointed at Jonathan as Giles entered the room. “He brought her here.”

Giles looked down at Jonathan, surprised. “Really?”

Buffy nodded. “Yeah. Came to the door just before I called you with some crap story about a scrying spell gone wrong, something about mint in his rosemary. I figured I’d let you talk to him, since you’re the magic man, and maybe you could figure out what really happened.”

“Good thinking,” he praised her, then turned to Jonathan.

Jonathan gulped. Mr. Giles had always been a little intimidating, but with that look on his face, he was downright terrifying – even more so than Buffy. “Some guy paid me to open the portal!” he exclaimed before Mr. Giles could hurt him.

Giles raised an eyebrow at Buffy, who smirked. “You’re so scary, Giles,” she teased him, putting the khakis on the sewing machine. “Try not to bloody up my couch too much; I can’t really afford a new one right now.”

Giles, amused, turned back to Jonathan. “You will tell me everything,” he said in his softest, most reasonable voice. That voice always seemed to terrify people even more than when he yelled. “And you will do so now.”

Jonathan whimpered once and began to speak. “He came to me a couple of weeks ago,” he explained. “Said he wanted to open a portal to his homeworld. He had a daughter, and he wanted to bring her here.”

“A daughter?” Buffy repeated.

Jonathan nodded. “Yeah. He said he and his wife had broken up and she was refusing to let him see his kid; she’d taken the kid back to the homeworld and they were hiding.”

“And when did you learn the truth?” Giles asked.

“The day I did the spell,” Jonathan admitted. “He’s not her father; he’s her brother. He accidentally killed their father – they were fighting, and it got out of hand – and he was banished from their homeworld. His mother was the main witness against him. He wanted revenge. So he arranged to have his mother die to open the portal – I didn’t have anything to do with that part, I swear! And then I opened the portal to bring his sister here.”

“Why?” Giles demanded.

“I don’t know, honestly,” Jonathan averred. “All I know is he keeps talking about something called the Void, and his revenge.”

Buffy finished the khakis and called Emma over to try them on. “If you knew what he was doing, why did you help him?” she asked in a reasonable voice.

“It was too late when I found out,” Jonathan mumbled, his head dropping in shame. “I didn’t know that was what was happening until it was already happening. He modified the portal spell so that it would explode when I cast it, which is what killed their mother, and then the portal itself opened and brought the little girl here. Only it was supposed to bring her into the magic circle, and it didn’t; it opened somewhere else instead.”

“Restfield Cemetery,” Buffy told him. “That’s how I found her. I was on patrol.”

Jonathan nodded. “I wondered.”

“Very well,” Giles said. “I appreciate that you have been honest with us. Because of that, I’m not going to kill you for your part in this.”

Buffy stared at him, seam ripper in one hand and a pair of denim shorts in the other, wondering if he was serious. Jonathan’s face had drained of color. “I’m sorry,” the boy squeaked. “I won’t ever do anything like that again. I swear!”

“That’s true,” Giles said mildly. “You won’t.” He reached out and laid his left hand on Jonathan’s head, his palm laying across the center of Jonathan’s forehead. “Bind.”

A bright yellow light surrounded Giles’s hand, extending out to wreath Jonathan’s entire head in its golden glow. It faded a moment later, and Giles stepped back. “This is not the first time you have endangered not just yourself or just us, but an entire town of innocents, by your irresponsible magical behavior. I assure you, you will never do that again.”

Jonathan was frantic. He could feel his magic, but it was locked away from him, and he couldn’t reach it. “What did you do?” he begged. “What did you do to me?”

“I have bound you, Jonathan,” Giles said softly. “You will never do magic again.” He stepped away from the boy. “You need to go now,” he said. “I certainly hope you have no trouble with your former employer.”

In tears, Jonathan stumbled out the front door and down the walk. Giles watched him go until he was no longer visible, and then turned to Buffy. “We have no choice in this, I’m afraid,” he said softly, his eyes flicking to Emma and back.

Buffy nodded. “We can’t send her back because someone else would die. Besides that, we don’t even know if there’s anyone there who would or could take care of her. And we have to keep her safe from Big Brother. She’ll stay with me.”

“With us,” Giles corrected her. “I will not leave you alone and unsupported in this.”

Buffy smiled at him. “I know you won’t,” she said softly. Then she leaned back in her chair and sighed. “I guess this means we have a lot to talk about.”

“Indeed.” Giles sat down on the couch and was pleasantly surprised when Emma immediately came over and climbed up next to him, worming her way into his lap. “Daddy,” she murmured, laying her head against his chest and turning her attention back to the television. Her eyes were heavy, and Giles knew that in just a few minutes, she would be asleep.

He kept his voice down when he spoke. “I had actually been considering making this offer for some time,” he began, “since shortly after your mother died. The only thing that kept me from doing so was a fear of seeming, well, improper. But now there are a number of good reasons to go ahead and suggest this, so I shall.”

“Giles,” Buffy said when he took a breath, her tone amused, “just ask me. Whatever it is, I promise not to break your arm.”

He gave a slight laugh. “Yes, well, thank heaven for small mercies. All right, then. With the understanding that I am not suggesting anything improper, I believe it would be a good idea if we moved in together.”

Buffy’s lips quirked. “I can see why you’re carrying around the heavy warning signs.”

“Yes, well,” he replied with some asperity, “Willow does insist that a vague disclaimer is nobody’s friend.”

Buffy laughed at that. “And she is so very right. Okay, Mister Making With the Properly Improper Suggestions. I’m all ears.”

He blushed. “Emma needs a family,” he pressed on gamely. “I strongly feel that children do best when raised in dual-parent households. She is already beginning to look on us as her parents; it would be less confusing for her if we were cohabiting. Further, it would be safer for her, as we would both be available to protect her.” He took a deep breath. “But even more than that… Buffy, it is my duty as your Watcher to help you, to make sure that you have nothing to worry about beyond your duties to the world. Everything else must be secondary in your life, and it is the place of a Watcher to ensure that for his Slayer. Up until now, I haven’t done so, simply because you had your mother to do that for you. Now that she is gone, it is time for me to take up my duty to you.”

Buffy frowned. Her hands, which had been busy on the sewing machine while he spoke, paused to turn the machine off mid-stitch and fall into her lap. His words had struck her to the core – and not in a good way – and she paused for a moment to see if she could understand why. At last, she found the question she needed. “Is that all I am to you, Giles?” she asked in a voice so small he found himself leaning forward to hear her better. “Just your duty?’

He realized his error immediately and set the sleeping Emma aside. Standing, he moved to touch her shoulder, but she stood as well and moved away from him, her eyes huge and hurt in her face. “No, Buffy,” he said softly. “You aren’t just my duty. You are my Slayer, and I care about you.” Out of the corner of his eye, he realized that his moving of Emma had woken her, and she was watching their interaction with wide, worried eyes.

“Your Slayer,” she repeated, bitterness in her voice and twisting her lips. “Your duty.” She gave a harsh bark of laughter. “Well, I guess it’s good to know where I stand. I thought at the very least we were friends by now, but I guess I thought wrong.” She reached up to scratch an itchy spot on her face and was surprised to find when she removed her hand that the sensation was actually tears falling from her eyes. “Fine, Giles,” she said softly. “You wanna move in here and do your duty? That’s fine. I’m sure I could use the help.”

He reached for her again, trying to catch her hand, to explain his error, to make the pain on her face go away, but she spun away from him and disappeared down the hallway. Seconds later, the back door opened and then slammed shut. Giles stood in the center of the living room, in shock, wondering how on earth things had gone so badly wrong so quickly.

A moment later, a small snuffling sound from the couch reminded him of Emma. He turned toward her and found that she, too, was crying. “Mummy gone?” Emma asked through her tears. “Mummy go ‘way?”

He went to her, taking her in his lap. “She’ll be back, love,” he murmured softly into her ear. “She’ll come back.”

Buffy did eventually return home, but it was late that night, after Giles had fed Emma and put her to bed. When she came through the front door she was bleeding from a slice across her right collarbone; her shirt was in tatters and barely hanging on. Her left eye had been blackened and was nearly swollen shut. She was limping, favoring her right knee, which was clearly swollen under her jeans. Every step was clearly agony, and Giles rushed from the kitchen to help her to the couch. “My goodness, Buffy,” he exclaimed as he went for the first aid kit, “what happened?”

“I ran into Emma’s big brother.”


	4. Climax: Slaughterhouse-Five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Buffy and Giles must take responsibility for an orphaned child.

“I’ll be better by the morning,” Buffy insisted cheerfully, holding an ice pack against her swollen knee while Giles applied butterfly closures to her collarbone. “Good old Slayer healing.”

“How did this happen?” Giles asked softly.

“Carelessness,” she admitted. “I lost my stake in a vamp, and when I turned around, he was just standing there. I didn’t have any other weapons on me, so I had to fight him bare-handed.”

“And how was he armed?” Giles asked as he began to apply salve carefully to her black eye.

“Claws.”

He blinked. “Oh, dear.” His eyes flicked toward the stairs and back to her injury. “You don’t suppose Emma…?”

“I know she does,” Buffy replied. “She slept with me last night, and when she stretches, they do the retractable thing, just like a cat.”

I hope we won’t have to swat her for clawing the furniture, Giles thought, but kept it to himself. Instead, he asked, “Will you have trouble with him if you are better armed?”

“I don’t think so,” Buffy replied. “especially if I can get him with a crossbow or something. Trouble will be finding him. He knows I’ve marked him now, and he’ll be more sneaky about things.”

“Good,” Giles said. He finished with the first aid kit and set it aside. Still kneeling beside her, he took her hands. “Buffy, about earlier.”

He got no farther. “Forget it,” Buffy advised him in a flat voice.

“I shan’t,” he replied sharply. “Not until you give me a chance to explain.”

“There’s nothing for you to explain,” Buffy replied, standing and taking one limping step away from him, batting his hands away from her wounded flesh. “You made yourself very clear earlier.” She turned and limped into the kitchen.

He followed, unwilling to give up so easily. “No, I don’t think I did,” he insisted, reaching for her again. “I –”

He was interrupted by the sound of breaking glass from upstairs, and Emma’s shrill scream. Buffy spun away from his hands, her wounds forgotten, and barreled up the stairs, shouting Emma’s name. Through her open bedroom door, she could see that the huge Miarrao man she had fought earlier was in her room. Emma’s cries were coming from under the bed, and he was reaching under there to try and pull her out. “Giles!” Buffy shouted.

“Here!” he replied from halfway down the stairs. When she turned, he tossed her a sword hilt-first in a practiced maneuver. She caught it easily and stepped into the room. “Hey, asshole!”

Emma’s brother looked in her direction and then turned, stretching up to his full height and flexing his claws. “Would you take me on again, pathetic Slayer?” he snarled. “You have spirit. I admire that. After I have consigned this usurper to the Void, when I have undone the injustice that was done to me, perhaps I will allow you to live as my concubine.”

“I’ve had better offers,” Buffy replied easily, “and from guys that didn’t look like they needed a full-body shave. Back off. Emma is mine.”

“She is mine!” the creature roared, “and I will have her!”

“Over my dead body!” Buffy snapped back, and charged. She caught him in the midriff with her shoulder and the impact forced him backward, but he grabbed her shirt at the last second and when he tumbled back out the broken window, she was dragged along with him, fortunately still holding her sword. They rolled over and over, grappling with one another, until they reached the edge of the roof, where they both fell to the ground.

With a roar, he slashed at her face with extended claws. She jerked away, but not fast enough, and he opened a set of four matching gashes from her left temple to her chin. They were shallow, but they hurt like hell, and she could feel the blood dripping down her face. As she moved, though, she raised her sword in a two handed grip and slashed it at his arm.

He also jerked away, but he wasn’t fast enough either, and she caught him in the wrist. He roared in agony as the sharp steel blade separated his hand from his arm, the stump falling to the ground with the fingers still twitching. Clutching the spurting stump to his chest, he turned and ran.

Buffy moved to follow, but suddenly Giles was there, grabbing up the severed hand and grabbing her in the process, steering her toward the back door and the kitchen where Emma waited, howling in fear.

While Giles disposed of the severed member, Buffy put a towel to her bleeding face with her left hand and gathered Emma to her with her right. Lifting the little girl in her arms, she moved into the living room and sat on the sofa, cuddling her close while she put pressure on her wounds. Giles returned a few minutes later with the first aid kit and began to apply butterfly closures to her face.

“I don’t think they’ll scar,” he said softly when he was done.

Buffy nodded wordlessly, closing her eyes briefly and resting her unblemished cheek on Emma’s now-sleeping head. “I have to go after him,” she said softly. “I have to finish this before he has a chance to get reinforcements together. He’s wounded now and it’ll be easier to manage.”

Giles nodded, reaching out to take the sleeping child into his arms. “I don’t suppose I need to tell you to be careful.”

“No,” she responded. Standing, she retrieved her sword from the kitchen and started out the front door.

He stopped her, a hand on her arm. “Buffy.”

She turned to look at him, the fighter’s expressionless mask already on her face, and he said, “I am going to say this to you before you leave, and I want you to listen to me. You are not just my duty. You are my comrade-in-arms, my student, occasionally my teacher, and you are my friend. I make the offers that I make and I give the help that I give because you are my friend, and I care about you. You, Buffy Summers; not the Slayer. You. Do you understand?”

For a moment, the mask slipped, and she smiled at him, her eyes suspiciously wet. “I understand,” she said softly. “And I’m sorry I flipped out on you earlier. We’ll talk more when I get back, okay?”

He nodded, stepping back and watching the mask slide down again. “All right,” he said softly, and she was gone. “Be safe,” he added to the darkness she vanished into. He closed the door behind her, then slumped onto the sofa and put his head in his hands. He sat there for a few moments, trying not to cry, and was surprised by a suede-soft touch on his arm. He looked up into Emma’s huge green eyes. “Are you awake again?” he asked her, leaning back and allowing her to climb into his lap and snuggle close.

“Story?” the little girl asked softly.

“Of course,” Giles replied, smiling down at her and holding her close, hoping the nearness would reassure her. She was still trembling slightly and her expression was desperately unhappy. He settled into a more comfortable position and began to speak. “Once upon a time,” he began, “there was a beautiful princess whose own special job was to fight demons.”

The Miarrao’s trail was ridiculously easy to follow, even in the dark. He hadn’t bothered with things like the sidewalk, and when he had, he’d bled all over it. Instead, he’d contented himself with crashing through shrubs and flowerbeds and, in one memorable incident, a small picket fence. He’d dropped to his knees several times, and the last time he didn’t bother to get up again, just crawled around a house to what appeared to be the basement door, which was standing open.

Buffy gripped her sword carefully and moved closer to the door. The voice of the Miarrao, blurred with pain, was demanding of someone to be healed.

“I can’t!” Jonathan Levinson was heard to whine, and Buffy’s eyes widened. “He took my magic, I can’t get to it any more! The best I can do is a tourniquet and bandages!”

“You useless worm!” the Miarrao roared. Jonathan screamed, and Buffy took the opportunity. She spun around the doorframe and ran down the few stairs into the basement. The Miarrao, still spurting blood out of his wound and definitely looking unwell, was swinging weakly at Jonathan, , who was scrambling up a set of shelves as fast as he could, trying to get out of reach. The Miarrao had lost a lot of blood at this point, and was having trouble staying on his feet.

In fact, as Buffy approached, he fell to his knees, still struggling to get at Jonathan. Buffy reached out with her foot and nudged at the creature’s shoulder. He fell over and lay on his back, looking up at her. “You,” he snarled. “Come to gloat?”

“I actually came to finish you off,” Buffy replied conversationally, “but it looks like I won’t have to.” The blood from his stump was making a pool on the floor.

“Should have killed you in the cemetery,” the creature snarled. “Then she would be mine, and I would take my rightful place. But now, all is lost.”

“Not all,” Buffy said softly. “Emma lives. And she will thrive, and she will be happy. I’ll see to that myself.”

“And someday return to our home and claim the throne that should have been mine!”

“Aha.” Buffy sat down on a nearby chair, laying her sword across her lap. “So that’s what this has all been about. You got disinherited, so Emma was gonna get to be in charge. Now I understand.”

“You understand nothing, foolish human!” the Miarrao snarled. “Miar would have been mine, and the universe with it!”

“Now, all you’re going to get is a grave,” Buffy said softly, standing again and stepping forward until she was looking down into the wild cat-eyes, so like Emma’s. She raised her sword and spoke sadly. “What a shame.” With one hard swing, she delivered the coup de grace, and in the silence that followed, she turned to face Jonathan.

“Guess what, Jonathan? You’re on grave digging duty. And after you’re done? I strongly suggest you get the hell out of town. Because if I ever see you again, I probably won’t be able to stop myself from beating the crap out of you. Got me?”

Jonathan, still clinging spiderlike to the shelves, nodded frantically. Buffy paused long enough to wipe the blood off her sword onto Jonathan’s Star Wars bedspread, and then she left, taking the short way home through several back yards to avoid being seen from the street.

When she opened the door of her house, she stopped and smiled softly, looking into the living room. Giles was still sitting on the sofa, holding Emma close. They were both sound asleep. She moved to hang her sword in the rack on the back of the closet door, and then crept into the living room, gently lifting Emma from Giles’s arms and carrying the little girl upstairs.

Buffy’s room was out of the question – there was glass all over the bed and the floor – so Buffy bunked the child in the guest room, after moving some of her mother’s boxes and gallery pieces out of the way. She made a mental note to clean this room out and sell some of this crap, and then she went back downstairs for a plastic bag, a roll of masking tape, and Giles. She shook his shoulder gently. “Giles.”

He woke with a start, looking around in a sweetly confused way. “Eh? What?” Then he focused on her. “Buffy! Are you hurt?”

“Not really,” she replied, his question suddenly reminding her that she’d taken a pretty bad beating earlier in the evening. “Slayer healing’s already kicking in; I should be fine in the morning.”

“Good, good.” He reached up and touched her face gently. “I’m glad you’re all right.”

She smiled at him. “Fine and dandy,” she replied. “Why don’t you go upstairs and get some sleep? You’ll have a crick in your neck if you try to sleep down here.”

“Oh, nonsense, I’ll be just fine – ”

“You won’t either,” Buffy replied. “I’ve slept on that couch. I know better.” She pointed up the stairs. “March, mister.”

“Yes, Mum,” he replied with a faint grin. Then he paused. “Where will you sleep? Your bed’s all glass.”

Buffy pointed wordlessly at the couch and made a face at him, and he shook his head. “I think not. If I can’t, you can’t. Your mother’s bed is a king, yes? You shall sleep under the covers and I on top, then.”

“Make that the other way around and you’ve got a deal,” Buffy replied. “You look absolutely beat.” She raised the hand holding the bag and the tape. “Let me just get that broken window covered, in case it rains.”

By the time she made it into her mother’s old room, Giles was asleep under the covers, still in his jeans and button-up shirt. Buffy had changed into a pair of shorts and a t-shirt and grabbed a blanket from the hall closet, so she slipped onto the bed and wrapped the blanket around her, falling almost immediately into a deep, dreamless sleep.


	5. Denouement: The Sun Also Rises

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Buffy and Giles must take responsibility for an orphaned child.

The first time he asked her to go out with him on a real date, they were lounging on the beach, watching Emma build sandcastles and listening to Queen on the portable stereo they’d brought with them. Giles had been living with Buffy and Emma for perhaps a month, and their life had taken on a sweet, uncomplicated domesticity that Buffy found comforting.

She was lying on a beach recliner, eyes closed, letting the heat turn her into a reasonable facsimile of a wet noodle, when she felt Giles turn to her and take her hand. “Are you asleep?” he asked softly.

“Not really,” she replied drowsily. “What’s up?”

“Well, it’s just… there’s something I wish to ask you, something that I have in fact been considering asking you for a time now. I shouldn’t wish to seem improper, but, ah, you see – ”

She opened one eye and his voice trailed off as she pinned him with a gimlet stare. “Didn’t we go through a long and painful conversation about a month ago that started out just like this?” she asked rhetorically. “Spit it out. I’m still not gonna break your arm.”

He gave her a slight, pained smile. “Very well. I would like to take you out to dinner tonight.”

“Okay,” Buffy replied, her expression clearly indicating that she wondered what the fuss was all about. “O’Charley’s?”

“Actually, I was thinking Fiorenzo’s,” he replied, naming one of the best Italian restaurants in town.

Her other eye opened and her eyebrows went up, her eyes cutting toward Emma and back. “It’s a little sophisticated for the audience, don’t you think? She’s still slurping spaghetti one noodle at a time, you know.”

“Well, I was rather thinking of something along the lines of hiring a babysitter, so that I could wear my suit and you could wear that black dress that you look so lovely in, and we could perhaps share a bottle of wine and some conversation that isn’t interrupted by questions about Wile E. Coyote and minor emergencies involving beans up noses.”

Buffy ran this sentence through her head a couple of times, making sure she hadn’t missed any of the more interesting diversions, and then replied with a question. “Are you asking me out on a date?” she asked, her voice laced with amusement.

He blushed, dropping her hand and turning away. “I apologize,” he said in a low voice. “I shouldn’t have presumed.”

She reached out and touched his shoulder. “Giles.” When he kept his face turned away, she added, “Look at me.”

He turned to face her, steeled for the rejection, the kind words laced with pity that he knew would come, and was so surprised at the smile on her face that he almost didn’t hear her speak. “I’d love to go on a date with you.”

He blinked at her. “Really?”

“Really.” She squeezed his shoulder gently. “And I promise this isn’t a pity date or anything else you might think of. I want to go. Really.” She picked her watch up off the sand. “What time were you planning? Because I’ll need a couple hours to get ready, and we’ll need to find a babysitter.”

Giles blushed. “Well, I… in hopeful anticipation of a favorable answer, you see, I, er, I asked Xander and Anya to take Emma tonight. And we, er, our reservation is for eight o’clock.”

Buffy grinned at him. “Look at Mr. Preparedness.” She checked the time. “We should head home in a couple of hours.”

Just then, Buffy was attacked by a fuzzy whirlwind in a neon green onesie. “Mama!” Emma exclaimed. “Come swim!”

“I didn’t think cats liked water,” Buffy grumbled good-naturedly as she stood, but she was grinning. She looked over her shoulder at Giles as she started to walk away, Emma tugging at her hand. “Wanna come swim too, Dad-type guy?”

“No, thank you,” he replied, settling back into his own chair. “I prefer to watch.”

“You always have been good at that,” Buffy replied. She leaned over him to whisper in his ear. “But if you play your cards right, tonight you might get to do more.” Then she allowed Emma to tug her away.

Giles watched the two of them frolic in the shallow water, pondering those words. He felt himself begin to smile. He always had been a good card-player.


End file.
